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Traditions are part of what unites us, passing down customs through generations. Though many of us associate these practices with deep historical roots, many of them are far newer than we might think, having only taken hold in recent years.
Many traditions are created and then assumed to have ancient origins. In reality, some cherished customs, including holiday rituals and significant life events, only began within the last century.
10. Diamond Engagement Rings
The classic romantic gesture: kneeling and presenting a diamond ring to express your love and commitment. However, this tradition isn't as old as we believe—it was actually a clever marketing strategy designed to boost diamond sales.
That's right, the diamond engagement ring isn't some ancient custom. It was actually a clever creation by advertisers in the 1930s and 1940s aimed at boosting diamond sales.
In the early 1900s, De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. gained control over nearly the entire global diamond supply, allowing them to set any price they wanted. The issue? There wasn’t enough demand for diamonds.
To drive up profits, the company needed a way to make diamonds more desirable. Thus, the tradition of the engagement ring as we know it today emerged. Through advertising, they transformed this common material into a symbol of rare beauty and eternal love. Now, thanks to De Beers, you’re expected to spend thousands on a tradition that didn’t even exist before.
9. Gender-Specific Toys
Pink is for girls, and blue is for boys, right?
Wrong! In reality, the concept of gender-specific toys didn’t really emerge until the 1980s. For most of history, children played with similar toys, and no one really thought much about it.
It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that toy catalogs began dividing children’s toys into distinct categories, which marked the beginning of the gender-based toy divide. This led to the familiar blue and pink toy aisles we remember (or at least remember until Toys “R” Us closed).
However, not everything is as strictly gendered today as it once was. In the mid-1990s, more products were marketed with gender-specific campaigns, even home computers were initially sold as toys for men. Thankfully, things have evolved, but we’ve created a world where everything from dolls to LEGO bricks to colors carries gender labels.
8. Birthday Song
Ever wonder why your favorite TV shows feature strange and unique birthday songs? Or why so many restaurants sing a special birthday tune along with your complimentary dessert?
It’s not about being creative. In fact, the song we all recognize as the ultimate birthday anthem, 'Happy Birthday,' was so recently written that it only entered the public domain in 2016.
That’s right—the song we hear every year was only first published in the mid-20th century, and it has continued to generate revenue ever since, largely due to its deep-rooted place in American culture. Also, the lyrics aren’t even the original ones, but that’s a different story.
7. Trick-Or-Treating
Halloween originated as a Celtic holiday during the Middle Ages, which was later redefined by the Catholic Church and has been observed in various forms ever since. However, the traditions we associate with Halloween today are quite different from its early iterations. For much of its history, Halloween involved religious Christian observances, not costumes of the undead and other things that would make a priest cringe.
Trick-or-treating made its debut in the early 1930s, but then it vanished for about 20 years due to the disruption of World War II. After the war, with a population boom and more children than ever, the playful version of the holiday made its comeback. Now go out there and collect candy from strangers.
6. Saturdays
For much of the past thousand years, since the rise of Christianity in the Western world, people worked a six-day workweek, reserving Sundays solely for religious services. It wasn't until labor unions gained traction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the demand for an additional day off from work was made.
One company that granted this request was the one managed by Henry Ford. But this wasn’t out of generosity—it was a calculated move to boost his profits. How did giving his employees another day off lead to more money for him?
With an extra day off, workers had more time to travel, which in turn created a greater need for cars, ultimately benefiting Ford’s company. His brilliant strategy worked so well that it eventually became the norm for American businesses.
5. Drinking On Saint Patrick’s Day
Isn’t this an ancient tradition? Well, not in Ireland, it isn’t!
Drinking on Saint Patrick’s Day is often considered an Irish tradition, but it’s not as Irish as you might think. Up until the 1970s, pubs in Ireland were typically closed on the holiday due to its religious significance.
It wasn’t until the late 1970s that drinking became a part of Saint Patrick’s Day in Ireland, spreading as a way to break the Lent fast and carry on through to Easter. Interestingly, this tradition had already been established in America for decades before it made its way to Ireland.
4. Everything About Thanksgiving
Okay, it’s time to burst your bubble. Nearly everything you know about Thanksgiving is wrong. There was plenty of venison on the table, but turkey, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and potatoes? Likely not.
That said, we should question whether anything resembling our modern idea of the first Thanksgiving even took place. Almost every aspect of the holiday we celebrate today was invented long after the fact, and it probably has little in common with what the Pilgrims actually did to mark their harvest.
3. Santa
Though Saint Nicholas has been around for centuries, our current image of Santa Claus is a much more recent creation. For instance, his red suit didn’t become red until 1932, when a black-and-white illustration was colored red for an advertisement promoting a product.
Which product forever altered Christmas and gave us the Santa we know and love today?
Coca-Cola. That’s right, you heard us correctly. Coca-Cola used Santa in a red suit in one of their ads to promote the brand, and it just became the standard ever since.
2. Smiling In Photos
As photography approaches its second century, we’ve seen a lot of change. In the early days, the idea of smiling for a photo was completely unheard of. Telling someone to “say cheese” was not a socially acceptable thing to do for a photo back then.
No one’s quite sure why, but there are a few theories. It could have been a carryover from painted portraits. It might have been due to the long exposure time required for early photos. Or, perhaps, it was simply because people had bad teeth.
Whatever the reason, smiling in photos has become a relatively new trend, despite being such a prominent practice today.
1. Restaurants
Americans dine out so frequently that we tend to think it has always been this way. Restaurants have always existed to feed people, right? In reality, the concept of restaurants dates back only to the time of the French Revolution.
After the downfall of France’s aristocracy, many cooks and servants found themselves out of work, as no one could afford to hire a private chef. These workers came together to prepare meals for the common folk. They realized they could make money by doing this, and the idea grew into what we now know as modern restaurants.
